Global Missions – NPUC Costa Rica Trip

In March, more than 40 individuals from around the North Pacific Union Conference (NPUC) completed a successful mission project to the city of Alajuela in Costa Rica. Nearly 40 short term missionaries, including twelve students from Auburn Adventist Academy, Portland Adventist Academy and Walla Walla University, conducted evangelistic meetings at 21 sites throughout the city. Women’s ministry leaders from the six Northwest local conferences each preached at a different site and also spent a day presenting seminars on women’s ministries within the North Costa Rica Mission. The project goal of 100 baptisms was surpassed with a total of 135 individuals accepting Jesus as Savior. Plans will be announced soon for the 2014 NPUC evangelistic project.

Global Missions – Costa Rica 2013

The North Pacific Union Conference is sponsoring a mission trip to Alajuela, Costa Rica.

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. Matthew 24:14

Needed: Speakers and support team members for 48 sites

Location—In partnership with these Seventh-day Adventist Organizations

Inter-American Division

South Central American Union Conference

North Costa Rica Mission

Alajuela

Dates:

• March 22-30, 2012 (Orientation Thursday, March 21)

Activities:

• Preaching/Teaching the Bible

Estimated Participant Cost: $1,140-1,980

• Estimated Airfare $800-1,200 (Fly into San Jose, Costa Rica)
  • Check with MTS Travel or Siama World Mission Travel for airfare.
• Estimated Lodging & Meals at Central American University
  • Meals: $12 per day or $4 per meal.
  • Guest Room: $50 per night, double occupancy.
  • Dorm Room: $25 per night, double occupancy; $30 per night, triple occupancy; $40 per night, quadruple occupancy.
  • Click on the links to see pictures of the University: courtyard, central corridor, view 1 from the central corridor, view 2 from central corridor.
  • Miscellaneous Expenses $100 (there will be a $28 exit fee paid in cash at the airport upon departure)

For complete details and to register for the trip, please visit our missions website at www.npucmissions.wordpress.com.

 

Global Missions – Thousands of New Adventists Baptized in Single Day

Port Moresby campaign draws crowds in excess of 100,000. (Posted Sept. 4, 2012; updated Sept. 5, 2012)

BY ADVENTIST REVIEW staff

An evangelistic campaign in the South Pacific nation of Papua New Guinea has baptized between 4,500 and 5,000 people. Almost all of these are new to the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

PREACHING: Seventh-day Adventist Pastor John Carter preaches to mammoth crowds in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. [Photo: The Carter Report, Inc.]

Attendance on the final night of the series in Port Moresby was well in excess of 100,000 people, reports indicate. (The staff was too busy to count the huge crowd.) A very high turnout would have amounted to nearly half the population of the city.

Organizers say this is the largest non-Adventist audience to listen to an English-language Adventist evangelistic meeting in history. The preacher was veteran Adventist evangelist John Carter. It was by far the largest audience he has addressed in his 50-year career as a public evangelist. The crowd was so large they couldn’t all fit in the giant Sir John Guise Stadium, a soccer (football) venue. Fortunately, the public address system was so powerful that many thousands were able to listen while sitting in their cars or standing outside.

A large group sat on the grass listening in the dark at another soccer field down the road. On the only night the people at this second football field were counted, there were 5,000 sitting there. The local conference hastily erected a Continue Reading…

Global Mission – What Happens When the Lights Go Out?

The music continues, that’s what. The Oregon Adventist Men’s Chorus toured South Africa last month. During their stop in Grahamstown, they were scheduled for a concert in the Guy Butler Theatre on the campus of Rhodes University. They unpacked in soaking rain and wind, and walked into the unheated auditorium. During the pre-concert rehearsal, the lights all went out, with 150 men crowded together on the stage. Flashlights and phones came out while they broke for a cold dinner. At concert time, the power was still off, yet people were arriving for the evening program. What could they do? Read the story and see additional tour photos from the Oregon Adventist Men’s Chorus website blog HERE.

Wilson, Division Leaders, Put Footprint on Evangelism Outreach

South America to raise U.S. $50 Million for “big city” outreaches; Buenos Aires top target

FOOTPRINT FOR JESUS: Pastors Ted N.C. Wilson, General Conference president, and Erton Kohler, South American Division president, pose with map showing footprints on a map, symbolic of claiming a territory for Jesus. [PHOTO: Mark A. Kellner]

BY MARK A. KELLNER, Adventist Review news editor, reporting from São Paulo, Brazil

Concluding a spring meeting for the South American Division, Pastor Ted N. C. Wilson put his foot down, literally.

First, however, the sole of Wilson’s foot was dabbed with rubber-stamp pad ink. Then the president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists — joined by division and union leaders here, each similarly “inked” — pressed down on a map of South America. Then, each repeated the process with their other extremity.

This visual demonstration had a scriptural basis, declared Pastor Erton Köhler, division president: Just as God promised Joshua and the children of Israel the land wherever Moses’ successor trod (Joshua 1:3), Adventists were claiming the Division for Jesus. Each of the 17 unions had its own, enlarged, and each map bore the footprint of a leader.

Backing up the dramatic display was an even more dramatic commitment: the South American Division expects to raise U.S. $50 million to fund outreach in dozens of locations in 2013. Buenos Aires, the heart of a 13-million population metropolitan area, will be the chief priority, but every other union has identified a big city as an outreach target.

FOOTPRINT FOR JESUS: Pastors Ted N.C. Wilson, General Conference president, and Erton Kohler, South American Division president, pose with map showing footprints on a map, symbolic of claiming a territory for Jesus. [PHOTO: Mark A. Kellner]

The Argentinian capital is of special interest, for the city is one where only

NPUC-sponsored Groups Head to Dominican Republic

Adult and student members from around the Northwest converged on San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic last week. They were there to conduct evangelistic reaping meetings March 16–24 with a combined worship and baptismal service on March 24. Ramon Canals, North Pacific Union Conference Ministerial Director, had been on site for a week beforehand, preaching the initial series of meetings. Northwest Adventists partnered in this project with the Inter-American Division, Dominican Union Mission and the East Dominican Conference. This particular area of the Dominican Republic is famous for producing the greatest number of Major League baseball players. Stories from the missionaries to come in the April addition.

 

Dominican Republic 2012

The North Pacific Union Global Missions department has planned a mission trip to the Dominican Republic and we’d love for you to come. The area where we are going to be preaching is San Pedro in the eastern part of the country. The dates are March 16-24, 2012. Missionaries will fly in March 14, orientation is March 15, and meetings begin March 16. It’s not too late and the prices for tickets right now are low, but you will need to act fast. The total cost for the trip will be between $1,350 to $1,650, (closer to the lesser price if you buy plane tickets soon).

• To sign up, click HERE.
• For more information about the 2012 trip, click HERE.
• To learn about purchasing your plane tickets, fundraising, and more, click HERE.
• To learn about past projects, click HERE.

We hope to see you there!

Biblical Sabbath and the International Dateline change

Officials of the Seventh Day Adventist church explain their position in relation to the time zone change during a press conference

When Samoa wokes up on the morning of Saturday 31st December, it found itself sharing the same day of the week, Saturday 31 December with the countries such as NZ and Australia the majority of other Pacific island countries.

Samoa time moved forward by a whole 24 hours having skipped Friday 30th December entirely.

The change is the result of government’s plans to change the positioning of the International Date Line in relation to Samoa.

In doing so, Samoa is now in the eastern hemisphere in terms of reckoning of time, together with it’s near neighbours and trading partners. For most purposes, the change will have no practical effect on people’s everyday lives.

But by sharing the same time zones with these countries, the conduct of business and other relations with Samoa’s closest partners and neighbours, not to mention travel will be more convenient and less disruptive, reasons given for the change.

For the Christian community, however, the change has implications for the two recognized weekly days of worship, Sunday on the first day of the week, and the Biblical Sabbath on the seventh.

Sunday worship will continue uninterrupted for the majority even though Sunday will have moved from the first day of the week to the seventh and last day. For those like Seventh Day Adventists, who observe the Biblical Sabbath however, the change will present challenges because of the read more

NAD Issues Caution on Church and School Related Travel to Mexico

Because of escalating violence throughout Mexico, the North American Division, in consultation with the General Conference International Crisis Committee, does not recommend that churches, schools and other organizations travel to Mexico until there is a significant reduction in the violence. Groups and individuals are therefore urged to avoid all nonessential travel to Mexico. If a trip becomes necessary, leaders must review and abide by the U.S. State Department travel warnings, which include travel restrictions and security precautions for specific areas of the country and obtain all necessary organizational approvals before committing to any trip. More information from the government is available online HERE.

Global Missions: Jere D. Patzer Memorial Church Grand Opening in Bulawayo 2011

During the annual Maranatha Volunteers International Convention on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011, in Tualatin, Ore., Garwin McNeilus, businessman, paid special tribute to a Northwest project to build church and school structures in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. The project was completed near the site where Jere Patzer, former North Pacific Union Conference president, preached a series of evangelistic meetings in 1998. A dedicatory plaque in honor of Patzer will be placed at the site. Sue Patzer, along with other Northwest leaders, was in Zimbabwe through the middle of October to conduct an evangelistic series and oversee completion of the project. Click HERE to watch a video interview with Sue Patzer.

Global Missions – African Rice Heart

Three years ago, Emily Wilkens flew into the unknowns of Chad, hopped on a motorcycle and found her destination amidst the desert flats in the village of Bere. This month, she holds in her hands a hot-off-the-press copy of her very own book, “African Rice Heart,” a compilation of prayers, letters to friends, journal entries, poems, and blog entries from her time in Chad.

Wilkens, a 2010 health science graduate of Walla Walla Univeristy, spent six months working as a nurse in the hospital in Bere and living with a family of nineteen.

“However, let’s remember that I’m not a nurse,” says Wilkens. “I had done some phlebotomy training at the community college in Walla Walla, and had some training in medical assisting, but even so, the hospital was a very stressful place for me. Even a hard place for me.”

The book contains over 80 short chapters, each introducing different aspects of READ MORE

Global Missions – Engineers Without Borders in Honduras

Walla Walla University’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB-WWU) has completed phase one of their Hope for Honduras project, designing and overseeing the building of five classrooms at the elementary school in the village of Luis Garcia. Over spring break representatives of the group are visiting the school grounds to do an assessment of phase two of the project.

Three faculty and three students are in Honduras assessing the drainage issues on the campus. Currently, sewage runoff from the surrounding community flows through the school grounds, and the school’s own latrine system is not adequate for the 300-500 students who will be using it. The group from WWU will be working to determine drainage needs, latrine usage, and what type of sewage system will be best for the school.

“We will have an education meeting with the locals,” says Curt Nelson, professor of engineering and faculty sponsor of EWB-WW. “We need to learn from the community members what kind of latrine they want and what system they will know how to use. We need to ensure we solve the entire problem, not just part of it.”

Nelson also hopes to be able to continue researching the effect of their project on the local community. The classrooms built in 2010 allowed 250 additional students to attend school, and Nelson wants to know how far-reaching that change was.

“In that area, young women frequently drop out of school and start families,” he explains. “I want to know if more of READ MORE

Global Missions – Japan

Adventists Urged to Give Immediate Assistance to Japan

Church and ADRA Teams Assess Damage

The Adventist Development and Relief Agency continues to respond to the devastating tsunami triggered by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that shook Japan on Friday, March 11. Assessment teams reached the severely affected city of Sendai in the Miyagi Prefecture within 24 hours after a 30-foot tsunami wave crashed through the city, destroying entire communities and claiming thousands of lives. Thousands are still missing. Read more from ADRA’s website HERE.   “As the church in Japan copes with the impact of the recent earthquake and tsunami, the support of church members around the world through prayer and financial donations is greatly appreciated,” says Dan Jackson, president of the North American Division. Adventists can offer immediate support for ADRA or other church-related efforts in Japan, by texting or using one of the additional methods listed here:

• Mobile Devices: text “SUPPORT” to 85944 to make an automatic $10 donation
• Online Donations: at www.adra.org or through the NAD
• Phone Donation: 1-800-424-ADRA
• Check by Mail: make payable to ADRA and marked “Japan Relief” and mail to: ADRA International, 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904

Local Church Offering: Use your church tithe envelope and mark it “Japan Relief” to help churches and schools with recovery and outreach

 

Japan Union Conference Assesses Needs in Quake Aftermath

Word from the Japan Union Mission indicates they are

Global Missions – Land on a Hill

Missions, Argentina, Pastor Cristian Rizzo has a district of 11 churches and small groups, having to attend to more than 1,500 members. However, with a group of missionary leaders, they saw the need to open a new Church in a neighborhood that was still under construction. The pastor encouraged them with the project and they began to pray so that their dreams would become a reality.

After weeks of prayer, someone donated a piece of land on a hill next to the neighborhood where they were looking to open the new church. Happy with the response from the Divine they began to raise the funds necessary to begin the construction. And in His time, the same God who put in the hearts of a group of leaders, the desire to open a new Church opened the doors so that

ADRA Assists Indonesian Volcano Relief

The Adventist Development and Relief Agency delivered assistance to one of the areas closest to the site of the Oct. 26, 2010 eruption of Mount Merapi in central Java, reported emergency officials in Indonesia last week. ADRA’s emergency response is centered on the village of Glagah Harjo, about five miles south of Mount Merapi. Nearly 500 displaced families from four smaller villages were living in temporary shelters there, said Hector Carpintero, country director for ADRA Indonesia.